Reports of bitcoin's demise in China are premature, a conference on cryptocurrencies in Hong Kong heard on Tuesday.
“China has not banned bitcoin,” BTC China’s Bobby Lee said, drawing a spontaneous round of applause from delegates at the conference.
That was the good news. “The bad news is that the PBoC has suppressed it,” Lee said, once the applause had died down.
China’s central bank has not made any public statements about bitcoin since it issued a guideline on December 5 classing it as a virtual commodity rather than a currency. But in May it appeared to adopt a stricter interpretation of its own guideline, banning banks from facilitating transfers to bitcoin exchanges and sparking rumours of a government backlash.
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